Can You Picture This?
by Dibsthe1
Summary: Something to tide you over until I figure out where to go from here. Dib takes photographs of Zim and shows them to the powers that be. Still less violence again. And... well, a very different kind of ending!
1. Friday: Exposure

Standard boilerplate disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim. Jhonen Vasquez does. Use only as directed. Offer void where prohibited. Product may contain peanuts.

This one suddenly got a whole longer than I expected, so I'm going to post it in three parts. It's okay; there'll be no evil cliffies! Zim's in the first part only, so if you've been wondering what I'd do with him, wonder no more! (Or at least wonder a whole lot less.)

Can You Picture This?

Part One: Friday: Exposure

Whatever in the name of God kind of being that was, it was most definitely_ not_ a human one.

As soon as those mandibles parted and the first utterance came out, Dib noticed something was horribly off... something far beyond the bizarre choice of phrasing. NOBODY ever needed to refer to themselves as a "perfectly normal human" unless that fact had ever been in doubt!

The voice didn't sound remotely like any voice, or even any sound, that Dib had ever heard. In fact any human voice it could even vaguely suggest was one that had been stripped down with an oscilloscope and reassembled out of phase. It came out so fake that it seemed vaguely mechanical, as though the being's throat was full of oily gears and cables.

The more Dib tried to name what the sound reminded him of, the more descriptions he came up with, until he decided the most accurate was the whir of a blender on the most menacingly high setting, combined with the rattle of a rattlesnake... plus an unnerving 1000Hz tone laid down over it all.

When Ms. Bitters asked the being, "What is your name, you doomed child?" he (if indeed it was a he) uttered a sort of unearthly chirp, more like the sound a cricket makes than any name Dib had ever heard, but the closest human approximation of the name was "Zim." So Zim he became.

And the moment Zim said, "You have nothing, absolutely nothing to fear from me," just like that, was the moment when Dib knew for sure that he had a great deal to fear indeed.

When Zim spoke this time, Dib noticed that the creature's teeth fit together like the teeth of a zipper or a jack o' lantern instead of the teeth of a human. Dib fought down a wave of nausea as it occurred to him that Zim's tongue, long and pointed, stretchy and finely segmented, made it appear that Zim was perpetually chewing and swallowing a giant earthworm.

Something else was weird about Zim, something Dib couldn't put his finger on until he realized that aside from that tacky wig, Zim did not have one hair. No eyebrows, no eyelashes, nothing. And the eyes bulged to a degree that would in a human be nothing short of alarming.

And Zim's pointed question, right out of the blue, about how prepared the earth's defences would be in the event of a full scale alien invasion, well! THAT should have tipped off anybody with an IQ greater than zero.

And even after Dib pointed out the blatantly obvious, these deliberately obtuse kids took the word of an alien being over his... and STILL refused to see what was right in front of them! _"Skin condition," indeed!_

After a wild chase through the city streets after skool, Dib found out where the creature had set up its base. Not one single stick of that big new house just around the corner had been in evidence on that vacant lot the day before. Didn't ANYONE find that AT ALL unusual?

After running all the way home Dib desperately tried to describe to Gaz what he'd seen at skool that day. Not only did Gaz care for nothing besides her games, she had long ago tired of her brother's incessant talk about aliens. After no more than one or two warnings today, she leaped off the sofa at him. Dib barely dodged her knee in time, and as Gaz regained her balance he spun around and bolted for his room, slamming and locking the door barely two steps ahead of her.

After ordering new alien sleep handcuffs from his favorite UFO magazine to replace the ones Zim's lawn gnomes's lasers had destroyed, Dib spent the entire evening pacing back and forth in his room, loudly debating with himself what step he would best take next. He barely heard Gaz barking at him through his door to shut up or she would REALLY pound him when he dared to show his face again.

Dib's bedtime came and went with sleep the last thing on his mind. When Professor Membrane finally came home, very late indeed, he hadn't quite fully opened the front door before Dib was running up to him shrieking, "DAD!! DAD! The ALIEN!! It's HERE!! I SAW it! C'MON I'll SHOW you! RIGHT NOW!"

His father, having heard little more than the word "alien," merely said, "Well, this gives you a great opportunity to meet someone from another country, son! Where is this new kid from?"

"NO country on EARTH!" Dib screamed, jumping and flailing his arms in his urgency. "It's all GREEN, Dad, GREEN! Bright, brilliant GREEN! Like a - like a GRASSHOPPER! NO ears! NO nose! What does THAT tell you? And it's from another planet, Dad, and it's HERE to TAKE OVER THE EARTH! We gotta STOP it!! PLEASE Dad PLEASE this is IMPORTANT!!!"

The Professor paused for a minute as Dib raved; could he actually be listening this time?

Then he chuckled softly."Oh ho ho ho! Aliens are just a metaphor for the old Communist scare, son!" he said soothingly. He reached down and patted Dib's hair scythe, so much like his own, as if Dib had merely been scared by staying up to watch an old 1950s horror movie on the Late Show. "And since perestroika and glasnost, we don't even worry about Communists any more! So just put on your pajamas and go to bed, son; everything's all right!"

This baffled Dib so much that he not only stopped jumping, he actually stopped talking. Sometimes his father made even less sense than he usually did.

The next day, Friday, Professor Membrane had already had his breakfast when Dib and Gaz came downstairs for theirs. He was preparing to leave early but gave them his usual breakfast talk while filling his briefcase with scientific papers and pulling on his coat. _He leaves earlier and earlier every morning, and comes home later and later every night_, thought Dib. _Soon we'll never see him at all any more._

The Professor announced that he would be working Saturday and Sunday as well, so he left standing orders for them to have a good weekend, to stay out of trouble, and to have some fun doing things together. Dib knew only too well what Gaz's ideas of the latter would run to, but this time he had far greater things to worry about.

Rather than repeat the frustrating attempt of the previous night again so soon, Dib had joined his father's conversation, steering the subject away from his deceased mother. For reasons of his own, the Professor very much preferred speaking as if his wife was still alive. That alone bothered Dib far more than his father realized, but on top of that, in this area anything could happen. Dib's father had certainly acted extremely weird at his mother's wake; while he could be more demanding with Dib than he was with Gaz, never before had he been short-tempered or harsh, or threatened to strike Dib for daring to state the obvious truth. And his father had yet to actually say his mother was dead; even at the wake it was just "so sick."

Dib deftly kept his father talking on and on about what to major in at college and the best way to take out a home-builder's mortgage and other things he only vaguely understood; if the conversation slowed down, his father might start talking about his mother again. It felt like crossing a river by jumping from one slippery rock to another before you fell in the water. For a long, long time now Dib yearned to have a conversation with his father about anything for five minutes without expecting this topic to come up, and about something other than chores.

Finally Gaz cleared her throat loudly and sarcastically so that the Professor turned his attention to her. Juggling both children in the same conversation seemed beyond his father's rudimentary social skills.

Keeping a sadistic eye on Dib as she did so, Gaz went on and on about what she and her mother had supposedly done together when she got home from skool the previous evening.

But Dib was too preoccupied with how best to get photos of Zim. Today was the day Dib would expose that being to the world for the alien threat it was.

In choosing which camera to take, Dib had selected not his new digital model, but his old fashioned one for its much brighter flash. Not yet fully knowing what he was dealing with, he decided to go for every little bit of tactical advantage he could get. Those sudden explosions of light could disorient even someone who was expecting them. Dib had found only three or four exposures remaining, so he rewound the old film (all false alarms anyway), and dropped it into his wastepaper basket before loading his camera with the spare roll and placing it securely in his trench coat pocket.

Dib had yet to photograph a UFO, but today he was going to get something even better, something even more conclusive. He was well aware that this field attracted a lot of crackpots who made it difficult for someone who'd actually seen the real deal to convince anybody else who hadn't seen it. Dib knew it would have to be a very good photograph indeed to stand a chance of convincing somebody who was in a position to actually do something but who hadn't seen the alien with their own eyes.

What would make the best, most effective pictures? A close up of the front of that head, for sure, as well as...

Thoughts like those were what occupied Dib's mind as Gaz kept adding one fabrication to another. At least it made her father happy enough, but where were Dib's usual pained reactions? Gaz seethed with barely contained outrage. _This is_ not_ the rightful order! Dib does not ignore me... _I_ ignore him!!_

When he had finished his talk with Gaz, the Professor left for work. No sooner had Dib stood up from the table than Gaz thrashed him mercilessly for not putting on a better show for her after all the trouble she'd gone to in making up that story. Dib merely curled up in a ball on the floor and waited for her to finish; when getting just a few little grunts of pain and no pleas for mercy at all got Gaz still angrier, she kicked him a few times extra.

To add even further to Gaz's frustration, when Dib finally stood up, with no more than a groan and a sigh, the first thing he checked for breakage and damage was... his camera! He actually had the nerve to look... relieved!

Growling through her teeth, Gaz stalked off stiff-legged and fuming to finish preparing for skool. By this time, even her skull necklace looked angry. Now that Dib had finally grown inured to physical battery Gaz felt as if she had broken a toy; in fact, the last time she felt like this, she had just smashed her first GameSlave to pieces in a fit of spite.

Gaz was determined to get her rightful upper hand back somehow. She was going to start doing something else to Dib, something else that would be EVEN... _WORSE..._

And she could still do plenty worse. That much she knew.

Dib limped just a bit as he accompanied Gaz to skool. He didn't call out for her to slow down, not because he knew full well that she wouldn't, but because for once he himself was in a hurry to get there. The haste paid off when they got to the skoolyard and Zim had yet to arrive, giving Dib his much coveted opportunity to lie in wait for the alien. He suppressed a snicker as Gaz stormed off.

Lurking behind the rails of the stairs leading led to the skool's front door, Dib used the telephoto lens to snap several pictures of Zim walking through the skool grounds and approaching the door. When Dib turned around for a rear view of the creature disappearing into the skool his astonishment was such that he almost forgot to get a picture from this angle. What was that thing on the creature's back, and how had he not noticed it the day before?

When Dib strode into the class several seconds later, directly on Zim's tail and steadily watching him, he noted with glee the surprised look on Zim's face upon realizing the human had closely followed for an unknown length of time. Score one for the earth! But it wasn't long before Zim had the advantage again.

That day Zim sat in class speedreading books about the earth's history and geography, spending no more than a half hour on the books for that grade. The next time Dib sneaked a glance at Zim, the alien was now zipping through texts of the next grade up. And the following time, it was hi skool texts. From where the book was open, Dib could calculate when Zim was up to events like the Inquisition, the Black Plague, and the Civil War. From the being's expressions while reading, Dib had no doubt it was getting all kinds of horrible ideas on top of any it had already.

The hi skool texts included biology, chemistry and physics. Zim could barely suppress laughter all through the biology book, and didn't seem too impressed with earthly chemistry or physics either. That expression of amused condescension while reading these texts suggested to Dib the expression he himself would have while reading one of those curious newspaper editorials from100 years ago explaining why air travel was impossible.

Reading on ahead, Zim kept looking around and catching Dib's eye. Was this merely checking to see if anyone was watching... or was this specifically to make sure Dib saw everything? If it was the latter, Zim could have taken intimidation lessons from Gaz, Dib thought with increasing discomfort.

Dib fought back an uneasy feeling that Zim was in a few hours absorbing as much information on these subjects as it took most people an entire skool career to learn... and himself, more like a year or two. Clearly this was no earthly intelligence.

He wondered about evolution and species classification on Zim's home planet. If humans evolved from apes, he didn't want to even imagine what kind of life form these... these Zims evolved from. To Dib, Zim strongly suggested some sort of undiscovered giant four-limbed insect, but which was even creepier, one with a most un-insectlike mental capacity. And it was already using words like "invasion" and "defences... "

Only too readily, Dib now recalled that after utter and total bewilderment, the most frequent emotion reported by people claiming to have seen a UFO was fear, a deep terror that could take days, even weeks, to ease.

With an effort, Dib forced himself to put words to what he was fearing the most. If this alien reminded him of an insect, was it of the type found in huge swarming colonies, like bees... or worse, wasps... or more horrifying still, army ants, those tiny marauders that collectively could devour even a horse or cow caught in their path? Whatever vast, teeming hive of a planet this creature came from would be mighty interested in the resources on this one, once Zim started sending back information, as all scout insects did...

Scout! Zim had to be the advance scout for who knew what kind of invading armada! What sort of horrific fate they had planned for the earth and everybody on it once they caught up with their vanguard was something Dib didn't want to even think about.

And now Dib felt a deep cold fear slowly creeping up around him. Dib Membrane, who woke up each morning and came out of class each afternoon to face a sister named Gaz, was as terrified as if all the foreboding and all the sudden frights he'd ever endured in his life had clutched him in this one icy moment.

Ms. Bitters chose this moment to hiss in Dib's face to "Pay attention!" He leaped with a frantic shriek which made Ms. Bitters's day and amused the class to no end.

Zim was laughing the loudest of them all. Dib forced himself to sit completely still facing the blackboard, his hand resting on the reassuring camera in his trench coat pocket.

When the bell finally rang for recess, the children stood up from their desks and began to mill around. Keeping one hand in his pocket and firmly gripped on his camera, Dib took care to lose himself behind the crowd so Zim wouldn't spot him too easily. Finally Dib approached the creature from the side, camera behind his back, taking a deep breath as he did so. "Hey, alien!" he blurted, cloaking his terror with loud bravado. "Is it true that the moon is made of green..."

Zim turned to look at him. "What is this that you want, you inferior earth - "

"CHEESE!" Dib shouted, snapping the shutter.

"AIEEE!" the creature yelled, shielding its eyes from the flash of light, which gave Dib plenty of time to photograph that alien mouth with those bizarre teeth and that horrifying tongue, both of which were most definitely not of this planet.

To Dib's immense relief, Zim didn't instantly blast him with some kind of alien death ray, or snatch the camera out of his hand and smash it. Apparently Zim was waiting to blend in better before making any openly hostile moves, so Dib knew he'd better take as many pictures as possible while the opportunity lasted.

For the rest of that day Dib relentlessly trailed after Zim, taking picture after picture, and he got some really good ones. A well-placed taunt had goaded Zim into sticking that shudderingly otherworldly tongue out at the camera. Then Dib got a picture of Zim running away on long appendages that came out of the backpack and which resembled nothing else as much as the legs of a spider. At lunchtime he caught a shot of Zim picking up the wig in the middle of the skoolyard next to a dodgeball; the two antennae sticking straight up like rabbit ears surprised Dib so much he nearly forgot to take the picture. That insect metaphor had been even more accurate than he realized. Dib added a few more pictures of Zim that afternoon, capturing images of the creature doing things he couldn't even describe.

Dib continued taking pictures even as he chased Zim home, with the alien shouting to everybody they passed, "Human! Hey, Human! You, Human, YOU! Command this earthstink to desist the chase of ZI - II - IIIM! I'm normal! NORMAAAL!"

Dib knew he was seeing a unique blend of the worst features of both culture shock and jet lag. As rapidly as Zim had learned bits and pieces of earth behaviour, the alien was still in the dark about what exact words to use for each particular situation. The more the being tried to blend in, the more conspicuous it became, to Dib's eyes, at least.

Dib in turn kept yelling to the people, "Somebody stop him! He's an alien, I tell you! AN AAA - LIII - EEEN!!!"

The people along Zim's escape route either turned around, waved dismissively or shook their heads. So that crazy UFO kid had finally found a friend who also wanted to play Alien? There went the neighbourhood.

Dib even got a couple of pictures of that weird green flying dog thing as it once more swooped out of nowhere to carry Zim to safety. He was confident that these images above any others would bury any last lingering doubts that this was the real McCoy. His final shot was of Zim peering out the window of the new house, with the Men's room sign on the door and the "I heart earth" sign in the front yard. Really! Who on... "earth..." did Zim expect to fool with that?

Dib could not keep his face from splitting with triumph as he got on the bus to go to the nearest photo developing place, the one at the maul. In fact, so wide and so persistent was Dib's grin that the bus driver got suspicious and kept eyeing him through the round mirror to make sure that kid wasn't vandalizing the interior of the bus with graffiti.

Once at his destination, Dib headed straight for the photo shop. "Extra prints? Sure! Make it three. No, four. Wait a minute, five. Better make it six. Okay, seven... but no more."

After staying away just long enough to savor a celebratory double scoop ice cream cone, Dib returned to wait at the photo shop counter, impatiently asking the clerk every five minutes if his pictures were ready yet.

By the time the pictures were at last ready, the clerk was as grateful as Dib. He breathed a sigh of relief as that weird kid finally ran off to find a bench somewhere else to sit down and look at whatever could possibly be so important.

And Dib was most satisfied indeed. His pictures were for the most part sharp and well-composed, looking exactly as he had expected them to look. Well, one was a little blurry because he had taken it on the run, but he had another, closer shot of a similar view which could not possibly be any clearer. Years of photographing satellites, kites, and weather balloons had after all helped Dib to develop quick reflexes, a steady hand and a photographer's eye.

On his way home, Dib stopped off at the newspaper office and asked at the front desk if any reporters were on duty because he had an extremely important story. Before long, a young reporter in a white shirt and jeans hurried out and introduced himself as Gavin before guiding Dib to a back room with a desk and two chairs in it. Gavin had already poised a pen over his notepad before he even sat down.

"Something serious?" he asked.

"I'll say it is!" Dib exclaimed as he nodded vigorously.

Sparing not the tiniest detail, Dib poured out everything that had happened over the past two days, beginning with the minute he first saw Zim the day before and ending with the alien disappearing inside that strange new house a couple of hours earlier. As soon as Gavin realized what Dib would be talking about, his face fell, but as Dib got caught up in telling his story, he noticed less and less the reporter's flagging interest.

By the time Gavin could finally get a word in edgewise, barely any questions remained for him to ask. He simply said, "Well, thanks for dropping in, uh, Dib." Dib thanked Gavin profusely for listening, insisting on leaving a set of photos with him.

After catching another bus, Dib went straight home, carefully avoiding Gaz as much as possible. After supper he went straight to his room to write his contact information on the back of each photo and to draw up his to do list for the next day. Dib decided to go to bed earlier than usual, heating a large cup of milk to ensure a good night's sleep. After sleeping fitfully if at all the night before, Dib knew he would need to be well awake and alert for what lay ahead tomorrow.

Coming soon: Saturday: Development


	2. Saturday: Development

Standard boilerplate disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim. Jhonen Vasquez does. Use only as directed. Offer void where prohibited. Product may contain peanuts.

-----------------------------

Can You Picture This?

Part Two: Saturday: Development

Having finished her cereal, Gaz placed her empty bowl on the coffee table and continued watching the cartoons. Reasonably certain that she would be occupied for the next little while, Dib washed his own breakfast dishes and returned to his room for the list he'd written down the night before.

For a few seconds, Dib looked around for his father before remembering the Professor would be at the lab both that day and the next. So this was how his father had chosen to spend what could well be one of the final precious weekends remaining to the human race. Through the window Dib could see the boy next door playing catch with his own father, as they did every Saturday morning while the Professor barricaded himself away in the basement making toast or whatever else.

Dib sighed deeply, then quickly turned back to his list of people to contact. In writing it up, Dib had thought carefully about who he could trust with such sensitive information. He had immediately ruled out confiding in his extended family. Anyone who'd met Gaz and still believed she was even remotely approachable would never see Zim for what he was either.

Writing the list had reminded Dib of an unflattering incident from just a few weeks ago. He'd been building something in the garage when Gaz happened by and eagerly said, "Ooh, can I watch?" Once he realized she wasn't just looking for an opportunity to hit him, Dib was happy to show her what he was doing, even explaining all the steps.

When Gaz lost interest and wandered away, Dib sighed with relief. _Maybe, just maybe, things are starting to get better around here_!

As his project was nearing completion, Dib heard a voice saying, "Hey, you... You... You!" He still hadn't known it was directed it at him until the speaker tried, "YOU! The UFO kid!"

Dib turned around.

"Excuse me, but have you seen my pliers?" asked Mr. Sterling, the man from a few doors down the street. He managed a large store downtown, was president of the PTA this year, coached Little League in his spare time, and was still never too busy to help a good, honest neighbourhood kid out of a scrape. Today, however, sweaty and hot in a very oil-stained T-shirt, he was obviously in the middle of a car maintenance job.

"No, I haven't, Mr. Sterling," said Dib politely. "I'm using my dad's. If you need a set of pliers, you'll be welcome to borrow these; I'm almost finished with them."

Mr. Sterling reached down and picked up something, saying, "No thanks, I'll just use my own pliers, thank you very much!" The look he gave Dib clearly accused him of being a liar as well as a thief. Dib had been too surprised to point out that he hardly needed to take Mr. Sterling's pliers as he was already using his father's; he had been baffled to the point of distraction by this incident... until he caught the smirk on Gaz's face at supper.

Mr. Sterling could have been an invaluable ally right now, had not Gaz destroyed all lingering shreds of Dib's credibility with him for a lark.

The first item on Dib's list was the paranormal institute, which was so secretive that he didn't even know their exact location; indeed, he suspected that people could work on cases for it for months before being trusted with such classified intelligence. Years of diligent investigation, however, had at least yielded their phone number. Dib called it now and found himself being forwarded to the agent who was on call that weekend.

"Hello, is this the Institute for Research into Paranormal Phenomena?"

"Who wants to know?"

"This is Dib. Professor Membrane's son," he couldn't resist adding. "I've got something to show you... something you'll be very interested in!"

"You do?" the voice on the line perked up immediately. "You have something on Count Cocofang?"

"No, this isn't about Count Cocofang. I have genuine photographs of an actual space alien!"

"What does an alien have to do with Count Cocofang?"

Dib stared at the receiver as if it had just sprouted hairy waving lobster legs. Was this guy for real? Quickly deciding that this character was on either on a special assignment or completely insane, Dib asked if he could please talk to anybody else nearby. When no one was, he left his name, address, and phone number with a firm request that they be given to whoever was the chief investigator in the aliens department.

Next, Dib scanned his photos of Zim into his computer and attached them to emails he then sent out to every member of the Swollen Eyeball network, a online paranormal group he had joined not long ago.

And with that, Dib had now moved down his list to the names of places he would visit in person that day and leave a set of photos with somebody. He knew full well that since it was a Saturday, he could expect no more than a skeleton crew at each place, but this he considered an advantage. One on one they might very well be more receptive in the face of such overwhelmingly obvious evidence, instead of feeling obliged to keep up a united front for all their co-workers.

After counting his remaining sets of pictures one more time, Dib headed for the bus stop to catch the bus that would take him to NASAPLACE.

Dib had made his way into this building so many times the security guards didn't even bother trying to stop him any more. To add some interest to the morning they checked the clock, then bet each other how long it would be before he got thrown out this time.

Passing a side hall, Dib caught sight of a janitor pushing a mop bucket ahead of him. Even though Dib had never seen this guy before, something about him was vaguely familiar; Dib just couldn't put his finger on what it was. Perhaps he'd been a teacher from the skool until he cracked up and had to take the least stressful job he could find? Oh well.

Dib went straight to the control room, which was somewhat less busy than usual, and found the mission director at his usual place, drinking his usual coffee out of his usual mug.

"Hey!"

The mission director turned around so fast that he sloshed coffee all over his shirt... as usual. "Oh, no, not you again." He spoke in a voice which had drained off all its anger and replaced it with weary resignation.

"I know what you're gonna say, but this time I really mean it! Really!"

Fifteen minutes later Dib sailed through the air past the guard house to land on the ground with a thud. Chuckles, a grunt, and the rustle of money could be heard inside. "Wanna try for best two out of three?" But this time Dib wasn't dusting himself off and immediately trying again as he sometimes did. He was heading off to his next stop, the Air Force headquarters.

Dib was well aware that the Air Force denied the existence of UFOs. But they couldn't claim that any longer, now that proof positive was here at last! Surely they would want to know all about this!

As the bus got close enough to the base that Dib could actually see the wall surrounding it, he suddenly decided he'd better think up a way to actually get in, as he'd never been here before. When he was younger, saying something that began with "When I grow up I want to be just like you!" had worked like a charm for getting him invited to visit all sorts of interesting places.

But the longer his age had been in the double digits, the less accommodating Dib had found most adults. Many seemed to regard him as a nuisance, one more preteen punk who was just waiting for any chance to do mischief. Dib now recalled that on the bus going to the maul to get the pictures developed the day before, doing nothing at all out of the ordinary other than to smile, the bus driver had watched him pretty closely the whole way.

Once off the bus, Dib walked up to the gate where a young sentry stood guard next to a tiny hut. In his late teens himself, the sentry was tall and lanky with red hair poking out beneath his helmet. With his freckles and quick grin, he looked as if he had just stepped off a recruitment poster.

"I'm here about something really important." Dib began. "You see - "

"Well, I'd be happy to listen, but I gotta tell you, I can't do anything," the sentry said. "I'm still a private and while I'm on guard duty I can't go anywhere."

"Well, I'm just going in for a few minutes then - "

"Wait wait wait, hold it. Nobody 'just' goes in here!"

"But I NEED to get in there and TALK to somebody!"

"National security?"

"Uh... YEAH! You COULD say that!"

"I'll have to clear you first."

The sentry reached for a phone inside the hut. After a brief conversation, the sentry got Dib to sign a log book before giving him directions to the office of the person he'd called.

Dib soon found it. "Hello, you're expecting me; I have - "

A middle-aged, thickset Air Force officer with the flattest brushcut Dib had ever seen looked up suddenly from his desk. "What's this about?" he growled.

" - I have some photos to show you... something you'll find very interesting!"

The officer grunted, "What are they of?" This was obviously somebody who had never picked up the phone any of the times Dib had called before.

"An alien! And - "

"No, you cannot."

"Sure I can, they're right here! Now this one - "

"You cannot show me a picture of an alien, kid, for one simple reason. It's because there is no such thing. That's pictures of something else you've got there. I don't know what it is, but I do know what it's NOT... an alien. And even if it was, which it is NOT, you would have broken a law just getting close enough to take a picture of it. Did you know that? Hm?"

As the officer sneered at Dib, Dib noticed that the top picture of the stack of photos he had taken out to exhibit was the one in which Zim had defiantly stuck out that long wormish tongue at him.

"They DO exist!" Dib protested, holding up his photos for the officer to see. "I tell you I took all these pictures just yesterday!"

"It's a hoax." The words came out automatically.

"IT'S NOT A HOAX!" Dib protested, stung by the accusation. Quickly he spread the pictures across the desk, where the officer could hardly avoid looking at them. "There! What would you say that is?"

"You. In your Halloween costume... on stilts. Cute. At least you've grown up enough to throw away your teddy bear. I see you set it on fire first, like any other lunatic."

"THAT! What would you say THAT is?" Dib pointed out a photo of Zim doing something even he still couldn't identify... and that after having witnessed it himself.

"It's... it's..." The moment his voice began to sound uncertain, the officer swept his arm across the desk and sent the whole set of pictures into the wastepaper basket next to his desk. Had Dib not had multiple copies, things could have gotten very ugly indeed.

"Please!" Dib's arms were flailing in his desperation. "Don't you - "

"For the last time, kid,"the Air Force officer gritted out between his teeth as he glared directly at Dib, "aliens... do... not... exist. It says so on every single page of my Government Blue Book! There, see?" He held the book in Dib's face, opened to a random page which of course backed him up. Then he stood up, put his hands on his hips, and leaned over his desk to stare down at Dib with the full force of his military authority. "Now you are getting off this base... right now... before I call out the men in the white coats. **_MOVE IT!!!_**" he sonic boomed at the boy.

Dib jumped a foot off the floor in spite of himself. Then he reluctantly turned and left, walking out past the guard house looking a lot less confident than he had looked walking in. The sentry called to him. "Kid? Hey, kid. Did something go wrong?"

Dib stopped but didn't turn around. "Oh, nothing.... except that the EARTH is gonna be DESTROYED, that's ALL!" he yelled over his shoulder.

With a friendly smile, the sentry knelt on one knee to get closer to Dib's eye level. "At ease, civilian! How's it gonna be destroyed?"

Dib could not run up to the sentry and pull out an envelope of his pictures fast enough. Looking them over closely, the sentry shook his head, whistling between his teeth. "Wow... Well... they sure do LOOK authentic, I'll give you that much!"

"That's because they ARE authentic!" Dib declared. "I took them myself! Just yesterday! There's an alien in my classroom... "

The expression that came to the sentry's face as soon as Dib mentioned the word classroom told him that the sentry was fast losing whatever faith he may have had in Dib's story. "PLEASE! Won't ANYBODY PLEASE believe me!!" Dib was shouting to keep himself from crying in front of this Air Force guy. "Here, TAKE these, I've got other copies. Try... TRY and find SOMEBODY in there who'll take this SERIOUSLY! The FATE of the EARTH DEPENDS on it! PLEASE!! YOU'VE GOT TO BELIEVE ME!!" Dib grabbed the sentry's lapels and with terrified, earnest desperation stared directly into the eyes of the closest thing to an ally he'd found so far.

The sentry frowned, not an unfriendly frown but a thinking one. This kid was already babbling wildly about UFOs; even if he did repeat what he was about to hear next, who would believe it? The sentry looked around in every direction very carefully before leaning in closer to Dib's ear.

"This... this is a secret. A REAL secret. I am under the strictest orders not to breathe this to a living soul," he whispered, still glancing around, "but the Air Force knows all about UFOs - SHHH!" He covered Dib's mouth before Dib could start screaming questions about why they weren't doing anything if they knew. "We do defence, not scientific inquiry... and we don't believe UFOs are a threat. All those sightings, and not one single actual attack? We can't risk starting a major panic. This may indeed be the real deal," he held up the pictures Dib had just given him, "but I'd say you have nothing to worry about."

The sentry was trying to reassure an obviously distraught child, but Dib in his fear and frustration felt like he was being shrugged off yet again. "No attacks YET! This alien is TALKING about invasions and defences! I heard it... I HEARD IT!"

"Shhhhh! I hear ya, rookie. If I was older and a high enough ranking officer, maybe I could do something. But I'm just a Private. I can't do anything myself, and my Commanding Officer wouldn't believe me any more than he just now believed you. " He shook his head and held out his hands.

By the time this sentry was old enough that anyone would listen to him, it would be far too late. And even assuming that he did survive to get old enough to do something, would he have become as sceptical and stubborn as the old guy Dib had talked to earlier?

Dib pointed out his contact information on the back of each picture, just in case the sentry did find someone who would be willing to listen.

"Dib, huh? My name's Jerome. Pleasure to meet you."

"Well... thanks, Jerome. TRY! PLEASE, try!"

As Dib turned to leave, he noticed Jerome winking and giving him a salute.

This time Dib was going to go see somebody whose job _was_ scientific inquiry, someone like his father but hopefully more open-minded about UFOs, someone at the astronomy department of the university.

He encountered little resistance in getting past this university security guard. All he had to do was sign his name, and for good measure he said that yes, he was THAT Professor Membrane's son.

Following the first map he came to, Dib found the astronomy department with little difficulty and soon located an office with an open door and someone inside. However, this someone refused to even consider that the photos might be genuine, after the briefest of glances directing Dib to the theater department of the Fine Arts building.

Dib instead searched the astronomy department a little more and eventually found another open office in which a young man and woman, graduate students most likely, were working on something. When Dib came to the doorway and knocked on the doorframe they looked up, glad of an interruption to break up a busy Saturday, but their smiles faded as soon as Dib began to speak.

"So THAT'S what you look like. We keep telling you, IT'S NOT A UFO!" the woman briskly held up her hands to ward Dib away.

"No, not this time! These are actual pictures of an actual - "

"- satellite. Or a Frisbee. Or a kite. Or a weather balloon. Or a pie pan somebody threw at you. Pick one and leave us alone! We're too busy for this!" Bending over his work again, the man pointed at the door behind Dib.

"I know it's not a space ship this time. It's an alien!"

A pause. Dib thought this meant they were listening and would believe him this time.

"I have all these pictures I took yesterday of an actual space alien, and if you'll just - "

A harried looking grey-haired man in a tweed suit stepped out from behind a bookcase. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but this stopped being funny fifty times ago." He turned to the grad students. "Call security."

Dib was about to turn and leave before they could actually do so, but then a better idea occurred to him. "Go ahead, call. Please."

With that, they suddenly weren't so eager to call, but did so anyway. When the security guard showed up, he nearly walked straight into the pictures Dib was already holding up to an adult's eye level. "I'm glad to see you!" Dib blurted. "Who would you suggest I show these pictures of a SPACE ALIEN to?"

The guard shook his head sympathetically at the astronomy professor. "Man, I wouldn't want your job... getting all the nutcases who think they've seen a UFO. Come on, 'Muddler', the truth is _out there_! So get out there and keep looking for it!"

Finding himself being pushed towards the door, Dib decided that there would be no talking sense to these people either. Were there no limits whatever to people's tendency not to accurately see what was right in front of them? This was proving more difficult than he thought.

Outside again, Dib stumbled along, glaring down at the sidewalk, wondering if he should just go home and think up another list, when he heard a siren wailing somewhere far away, probably a police car or -

Police!

He headed to the police station, hoping to catch an officer coming out. But the only officer he could see right at that moment was heading into the station.

Waving an envelope of pictures, Dib ran up to him. "OFFICER!! Have I got something to show you!!"

The cop looked very interested... until he actually looked at the pictures. "Oh. Nice."

"These are pictures of an ALIEN! A dangerous alien who is - "

"An alien? From where? Mexico?"

"No, not Mexico! Outer space!"

Pointing a finger toward the sky, the cop lifted an eyebrow with the air of having seen it all and that nothing could possibly surprise him now.

"Yeah!" said Dib, tremendously encouraged to find even this much response. "I knew it all along! Not only is there intelligent life on other planets, it's here to - "

"Intelligent life on other planets. Uh huh." The cop looked pointedly at Dib. "Some days I'm not so sure about THIS one."

"Me neither!" said Dib, missing the slur. "Can I go into the station with you and tell everybody? And give these to your chief? My contact information's on the back for whoever gets assigned to check it out. I know exactly where the alien is staying, so I'd be the one to send somebody to come talk to."

The cop shrugged. "Sure, we can always use a la - I mean, sure, why not?"

He guided Dib into the station and through a door marked "Cafeteria", saying it was suppertime and the chief would be in here too. Every police officer in the room gathered around Dib when the officer called out that he had a young citizen who had something to report. They all listened attentively enough, in between questions about whether Dib looked both ways before crossing the street and didn't talk to strangers. They were only too happy to let Dib pin his photos on the bulletin board and thanked him for being such a good upstanding kid. Dib was so relieved to find so many police officers willing to listen that he didn't realize what was actually happening.

When Dib finally thanked them for listening and closed the cafeteria door behind him, he collapsed against the wall and closed his eyes, sighing with relief that finally, at long last, he had found someone who listened! But just as he straightened up to leave, obviously pent-up guffaws exploded inside the room, followed by waves of laughter which steadily grew even louder.

Dib bit his lip. They had merely been humoring him all along. Not one of the obvious rejections of the day had hurt like this; someone who briefly acted like a friend before turning on you was even crueller than someone who openly declared opposition.

Dib thought of going back inside the cafeteria to show the officers he was still there and had heard everything, but found he didn't have the stomach for it. Instead he simply turned and walked out the front door.

Trying to think of someone else who might listen for even a minute, Dib decided to head for the old age home, or senior complex as you were supposed to call it now. Surely one of them, over the course of a long life, had to have seen a UFO, or at least talked to somebody who knew somebody who'd seen one! Dib knew for a fact that people did see UFOs, even if they didn't exactly run around working that fact into every conversation.

Dib told the switchboard operator that he had come for a visit and was ushered to the common room. When told they had a visitor, the residents looked up as one from their jigsaw puzzles, magazines and knitting. _Oh, boy,_ thought Dib, _they all want to talk!_

However, being from the era when children were seen and not heard, the seniors liked to choose the topics for conversation. Dib found himself exchanging small talk on a multitude of subjects before anyone would even consider listening to him.

For all the people who were eager to talk, Dib found it extremely difficult to get anyone to actually listen to what he had come to say. The only reaction he did when he mentioned UFOs was from one old guy who just laughed at him, saying something about a fake alien invasion on the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast which had suckered him in back in '38, and how he was danged, by jingy, if he was going to be taken in again!

The woman sitting next to him looked at Dib sharply over her knitting needles and sniffed, "THEY were playing us all for FOOLS!" as if accusing Dib of doing exactly that.

That was as much interest in his topic as Dib would get on his last stop, and he walked out more defeated than ever on this long discouraging day.

By now it was early evening, and Dib was hungry indeed. On his way to MacMeaties, he stopped at a corner newspaper machine and bought a copy. Dib looked closely all through the paper while eating his supper but could find no sign of his photo. Ah well, he had brought it in very late on the previous day; surely it would appear tomorrow.

After encountering even more scepticism and hostility today than he had expected, Dib wondered what would happen once his story and photographs appeared in the paper. They couldn't ignore that! At least he hoped they wouldn't. Exhausted both physically and emotionally, Dib wasn't smiling when he got on the bus this time.

Playing away on her GameSlave, Gaz gave no sign of noticing as he got in... thank God. Dib went straight to his room and booted up his computer to see what the Swollen Eyeballs had to say about his finding.

Quite a few replies were waiting for him, but when he excitedly opened the first one, it said, "You've done well, Agent Mothman. However, the Eyeballs need more conclusive evidence before confirming any alien presence. Get back to us if you find more." All the others merely repeated some variation on this.

_How much more conclusive evidence could they possibly want?_ Dib wondered.

He studied the Zim photos more closely than ever before, both holding the hard copies close to his eyes, and enlarging the digitized images before scrutinizing them as well.

As if he was facing the alien itself, Dib hissed intently to each photograph, "I don't know what you're planning, but you won't get away with it!"

--

(A/N) Whew! This just kept getting longer and longer, but our Dib is not one to give up easily! Not a whole lot actually happens, except the usual result when Dib tries to tell anybody Zim's an alien. So if you actually made it this far, thank you! And whaddya think? Too long? About right?

To Psychosis: Continuing as requested!

To Maran Zelde: Yes, thank you, I heard somewhere that "Membrane" is in fact Professor Membrane's first name! However, when a family surname is called for, Membrane is the closest thing we've been given.

To Crazy Girl Person: No actual threat was present; Dib just remembers the threatening incident in my last fic and preferred not to go there. My idea of the Professor's denial actually started within the show. He is always both so superhumanly cheerful and inhumanly distracted that I thought he seemed to be constantly dodging something unbearably uncomfortable.

I wouldn't like anybody who treats Dib as hideously as Gaz does in the show, and only rarely with anything remotely resembling justification. I can even see Zim's point of view, but the sole explanation I have ever been able to cough up for Gaz's monstrous viciousness is that she offered Jhonen and/or the writers a way to take out their frustrations after wrangling with network executives.

And yes, you are absolutely correct. I have in fact been describing Gaz as more aggressive than she (usually) is in the show. However, the nauseating way Gaz threatens and intimidates Dib very likely points back to a long history of physical brutality such as I've been describing. As I indicated in Part One, this dynamic is about to alter somewhat, and not for the better.

Action/Adventure? Let's not get ahead of ourselves... Zim just got here!

To Tash Dragon: Thank you! I think this family offers so many possibilities that the show would be already interesting even without Zim.

Coming soon: Sunday: Album


	3. Sunday: Album

Standard boilerplate disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim. Jhonen Vasquez does. Use only as directed. Offer void where prohibited. Product may contain peanuts.

I don't expect to post any more stories until after New Years, so I wish you happy holidays. In case I don't have a new one up before then either, I also wish you comfort on January 17th.

----------------------------

Can You Picture This?

Part Three: Sunday: Album

The following morning, Dib stepped out to the corner store to pick up that day's newspaper, in which his picture and story had undoubtedly been printed by now. He could have easily enough called up the e-newspaper and printed out the relevant page, but when you've done something really special and got your name in the paper, nothing matched the quaint old-fashioned ritual of cutting out a piece of hard copy with scissors.

Besides, Gaz preferred her crossword puzzle on paper, because that way if she got a word wrong and messed it all up she had something she could rip completely to shreds. She'd long ago made it perfectly clear that Dib's Sunday would be anything BUT a day of rest if that day's newspaper wasn't waiting on the table for her at whatever random hour she chose to come downstairs for breakfast.

No alien on the front page... Dib started looking through the paper even before he left the store. Walking back home, he could find nothing about Zim in the whole A section. Sitting on his front step before going back inside, Dib found nothing in Sections B or C, but on the last page of D, the Lifestyles Section...

"NOOOOO!" he screamed, causing neighbours's heads to turn as far away as halfway down the block.

"Take me to your leader," read the headline, printed over the blurriest of Dib's pictures.

"A space alien stopped at the newspaper office Friday afternoon to pick up our special anniversary edition. Stepping from his space ship, which resembled a giant pie pan, the alien proclaimed, 'One small step for an alien, one giant leap for alienkind!' The alien was also quoted as saying he needed the Hubble Telescope to better aim his disintegrator cannon at the earth before blowing it up because it obscures his view of Venus. Whether the alien came from Mars or Jupiter is unknown, but it is believed that next Halloween the alien will be going out as a little boy who never stops talking about aliens... and who wears a black trench coat."

This was how Dib's big scoop was looking to the whole town right now... buried on the final page of the fluffy Lifestyles section as a lame joke. How could that reporter, who had sounded so interested in what he was saying, turn around and knife him in the back like that?

For all his general knowledge of newspaper production, Dib didn't know much about editors.

Compulsive collector of all things paranormal though he was, Dib couldn't bring himself to save this one. He crumpled that entire section of the newspaper and threw it into his wastepaper basket, hoping Gaz wouldn't miss it and come charging into him to exact her wrathful vengeance. By now Dib was so thoroughly disgusted with the reactions he had collected, he dropped his camera into the basket as well.

Dib stayed home in his room all day, until finally, around suppertime, he decided to face down the stares of neighbours. As he could hardly delay that moment forever, he figured he might as well get it over with now. He would have to walk to skool tomorrow next to Gaz anyway. If anybody yelled at him about the alien picture in the paper when she was with him, Dib had no doubt that Gaz would fly into him and pound him as savagely as if he had gone through all that trouble and disappointment for no other reason than to deliberately embarrass her.

He got a broad range of reactions, from "Hey space boy!" and "When are they coming for you?" to "Hi Dib!" By that time he was convinced that sarcasm lurked beneath even the most innocent greeting.

Dib's footsteps automatically took him to Zim's base; nothing was going on in any of the windows. He began to edge onto the lawn but stepped back quickly enough when he activated the lawn gnomes. Frowning, Dib turned around scanning the entire horizon; that lousy alien was undoubtedly doing something nefarious even now, but Dib had no idea where to start looking.

Nobody believes me. A dangerous alien is right here in our midst, with I don't dare guess what to follow and... NOBODY BELIEVES ME. It's all up to me now. Me. But what can one kid possibly do against an invading armada?

If the invasion landed before the earth's defences could mobilize against it... Dib shuddered as he considered the apathy he had encountered so far. Against Zim alone, perhaps he actually could do something. So he had to make his move as soon as... as soon as he figured out what it would be.

Maybe I can kill him BEFORE he calls his whole swarm down on us all, or at least figure out how to jam his signal? One thing's for sure. I'm on my own.

After another long, frustrating day, Dib turned around to trudge back home. He would take out his telescope to fearfully watch the skies for the final invasion. If this wasn't to be the night after all, he could once again start watching Zim at skool tomorrow morning to gather more information.

With the moon low in the trees, Dib found his house shrouded in shadow with a weak light glimmering from inside the living room.

Still looking warily around at the sky, Dib slowly walked up to his front door. The moment he went inside he could tell something was different, even if he couldn't put his finger on what it was. Could these vibes could possibly be because a paranormal investigator had been sent out to question him after all? Or maybe Jerome had gotten someone at the Air Force base interested in following up on his tip? Dib ran to the living room.

At first Dib blinked, wondering if he was seeing double. Why did they all of a sudden need two Professor Membrane lamps? Then Dib finally realized that something so unusual had happened that he had to push his brain into describing what he was actually seeing.

Not only was Dib's father home, not only was he not in the basement... he was just sitting on the couch, with one button of his collar undone, and even more amazingly, he seemed to be just watching TV! Something was definitely weird here.

Was Gaz in hospital? Had his father been waiting for him so they could now go see her? Even a few days' respite from constantly looking over his shoulder every time he came home or ventured outside his room would be a most helpful break right now. As if the Professor could read his thoughts and get mad at him, Dib forced himself to stop hoping that Gaz would thus be out of his hair for at least a little while.

"Wh - Where's Gaz?" Dib asked.

"HERE! Where did you think I was, STUPID?" growled Gaz. Only then did Dib notice the pointed purple hair in the shadows on the other side of the Professor. She was sitting next to her father, playing away on her GameSlave just like always, an empty soda bottle resting next to her. Dib then began to distinguish the figure of Gaz shaking her head as she sucked in her breath in the most condescending manner imaginable. "You get DUMBER every single day, DIB."

"Did - did the lab burn down?" Dib asked this without the slightest trace of sarcasm; he simply could not think of any other possible explanation.

"Oh, ho ho ho!" The Professor found the idea most amusing. "No, no, just a poison gas leak, son, nothing to worry about. I sent everybody home until further notice and turned the ventilation system on full power before leaving. As I was not expecting to be home tonight, no experiments await me in the basement. And by the time I get one set up, it will be time to go to work again! So I am taking a..." the Professor announced, with a dramatic gesture, " ...vacation!"

"A vacation?" At one point that would have been an answer to Dib's prayers, but now, as much as he would dearly love to spend time with his father, he couldn't afford to take any time off himself. "Where are you, uh, we going?"

The Professor's finger swept toward their big screen TV. "We're going to watch... A Double Feature! And tomorrow morning you kids are going to skool and I'm going back to work."

Dib opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. By his workaholic father's standards, this was a week at Disneyland. He turned his attention to the TV. "What's on?"

"Well," said his father with a smile in his voice, "we watched Super Kicky Fighter for a while, and when that was over, Vampire Piggy Hunter came on! Now we're going to watch the Space Channel. The first movie is starting... Right Now!"

"What's it about?"

"Science fiction!" said his father, as if no other kind of movie could possibly be worth watching. "They're actually showing 'Plan Nine from Outer Space' after this one! I saw it with all my new buddies at the university cinema after my first semester's final exams, and I laughed so hard I fell out of my chair!"

"'Plan Nine from Outer Space,'" Dib repeated slowly, pondering how best to bring up the subject of his alien photos.

The Professor wanted to make sure Dib understood something."Son, you do realize this UFO stuff is all nonsense, that it couldn't possibly happen for real?"

Dib weighed the high chances of yet more frustration over his pictures against the rarity of an evening simply relaxing with his dad like any other kid... and quickly decided that the pictures could wait. He'd seen an alien the past two days in a row now, and all too soon everybody could be seeing many more. In fact, Dib reflected, this could well be the last peaceful evening the human race would ever know. If indeed it was, he felt a profound gratitude that against all odds, this was the way he'd be spending it!

"But before that," continued the Professor, "they're showing the movie that actually got me interested in science... 'Fantastic... '," He spread his arms to suggest a theater marquee. "'...Voyage'!"

"I never heard of that one. What happens in it, Dad?"

The Professor chuckled as he patted the remaining empty space on the couch. "Well, why don't you watch with us, son? It may be an oldie, but it's a goodie!"

Still not quite believing this was happening, Dib took his place on the couch next to his dad.

Gaz was finding it harder and harder to concentrate on her game now that Dib's squeaky babbling had joined her father's cheerful, sonorous voice, but she wasn't about to say, "Shut up, idiot, before I smack you senseless!" as long as her beloved father was talking too. So Gaz put her game on save and sat back to wait until that yappy useless Dib decided to go pollute the air elsewhere with his non-stop yammering.

At first she tried to pay attention to the movie, but as she had no way of blowing up anything on that screen, and as nothing was happening anyway, Gaz immediately found it BORING. She lay back and waited for Dib to go somewhere else.

While the content of her father's side of the conversation was impossible to follow, the sound of his voice was so irresistibly soothing that the combination quickly lulled Gaz to sleep. Soon she was leaning against her father's side, snoring softly.

The Professor, looking around as if to see where Gaz had gone, noticed the bowl of microwaved popcorn and large bottle of soda he had brought out earlier and forgotten. These now commanded the whole of his attention as he set the popcorn bowl on the couch between himself and Dib. Holding the handle of the mug as if it was a test tube, he poured precisely half the soda into the mug which he handed to his son, keeping the rest in the bottle for himself.

Gaz had enjoyed the boon of unexpected time spent alone with their father; now it was Dib's turn.

Dib assured his father that he would be right back, then raced to his room as if the Professor was going to disappear in the next ten seconds. From the wastepaper basket he snatched his camera (good thing the crumpled paper cushioned its fall!) and what remained of the roll of film he'd dropped in there last Friday.

Back in the living room, Dib slipped the film back in. Even if none of them would live long enough to see the developed photo, this was something that he had to do. Truly unbelievable moments called for cameras.

As Dib advanced the film just past the exposed section and set it up on the coffee table, the Professor said, "Wow! This must be retro night! First, classic movies, and now, an old-fashioned camera!"

Dib reclaimed his seat next to his father and stuffed his mouth with as much popcorn as it could hold until the self-timer went off. Chewing and swallowing the popcorn, Dib set the camera up again to take another picture, and sat for another, more formal, picture of himself with his father. The Professor was holding the back of each child when the camera flashed.

Since he already knew that most of the pictures on this roll were completely worthless, Dib decided that he would request that this roll be first only developed, and then he would order double prints of these last two. No, better make it triple sets of these last two. Not particularly enjoying Gaz's savage attacks, Dib didn't want to give her any excuse.

As the film finished rewinding, the Professor now leaned back and placed his feet on the coffee table. Dib did so as well, even if it meant perching on the edge of the couch with his head touching the backrest and his toes barely reaching the edge of the coffee table. His father pulled the coffee table closer so Dib could rest his heels on it. Now they were both comfortable.

Dib reached for more popcorn. The middle of the bowl was still warm and the salty butter was tasty indeed. He wallowed in contentment for a second, with an effort pushing his concerns to the back of his mind until tomorrow... that is, if there would still BE a tomorrow...

NO! Don't think about that. Enjoy now. It may be all you... STOP! Stop. Enjoy. Now.

As the opening title came up for "Fantastic Voyage" the Professor took a long swig from his soda and sighed. He had first seen this picture with his own father when he was the same age as Dib was now, before he had the slightest interest in girls, let alone met his wife. Now the only associations it held for him were nostalgia for a simpler time in his life from which he could remember no problems at all, and for a simpler place where any problems that did occur were solved in ninety minutes.

He turned to face Dib. "Did I ever tell you, son, that this is the movie that first got me interested in... Science? And let's not be too loud; we don't want to wake up your sister."

Dib didn't have to be told twice not to awaken Gaz. "Did it? No. No, you didn't, Dad," he said, barely above a whisper. "What did you like about it the most?" Dib set the bowl of popcorn on his lap and sidled closer to his father.

Having seen this movie several times, the Professor was only too happy to share his favorite parts with Dib, in hopes that such an amazing picture would have the same effect on his son as it had had on him.

Dib's father took a deep breath. "Oh, a whole lot of things, son! Now the first, and perhaps the most interesting of all was..."

As the moon rose free of the treetops, the house curled up under a cozy blanket of shadow, a flickering light playing in the living room.

The End

_(A/N) I got the idea for this ending after exchanging a couple of emails with crazygirlperson, and while reading DibMagician's wonderful "Finding Happiness." _


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